Free. Bring your lunch. This talk explores the history of Provident Hospital in West Baltimore before it was absorbed by Liberty Hospital. Records from the Maryland Historical Society and the city archives show Provident’s rise and fall within a regional and national context, revealing the city’s tangled networks of racial financing, politics and dispossession. It challenges standard narratives of institutional mismanagement, labor unrest and poverty, and argues for a more sustained historical understanding of relations between racism, capitalism and health inequality in Baltimore. Provident Hospital opened with 10 beds in 1894 during an era when African American’s had few options for adequate healthcare. The hospital provided a place for black doctors to develop their skills, black nurses to gain training, and black residents to receive treatment “by physicians of their own race.” Provident grew to nearly 300 beds and 1,000 staff across multiple West Baltimore locations. The hospital suffered dire financial straits in the 1970s, however, and closed in 1985.

This talk explores the history of Provident Hospital in West Baltimore before it was absorbed by Liberty Hospital. Records from the Maryland Historical Society and the city archives show Provident’s rise and fall within a regional and national context, revealing the city’s tangled networks of racial financing, politics and dispossession. It challenges standard narratives of institutional mismanagement, labor unrest and poverty, and argues for a more sustained historical understanding of relations between racism, capitalism and health inequality in Baltimore. Provident Hospital opened with 10 beds in 1894 during an era when African American’s had few options for adequate healthcare. The hospital provided a place for black doctors to develop their skills, black nurses to gain training, and black residents to receive treatment “by physicians of their own race.” Provident grew to nearly 300 beds and 1,000 staff across multiple West Baltimore locations. The hospital suffered dire financial straits in the 1970s, however, and closed in 1985.